When kids were asked, what do you want to become? In the 70's, 80's even in the 90's the replies were Doctors, Engineers, Teachers, Army, Lawyers, Bureaucrats, Police, Pilot, Air hostess, etc.

But today children's responses are quite incredible; they want to become astronauts, physicists, robotic-engineers, computer-scientists, nano-scientists, psychologists, innovators, entrepreneurs, designers, musicians, film-makers and some are scrupulously bold saying that they want to become hackers or AI creator.

Now they have a global mindset, credit goes to internet revolution and smart-mobile technology. The real challenge is whether we have created institutions or infrastructure for these young dreamers.

Fortunately, these days most of the youngsters realize that the government cannot provide job to each and every one of them. They also know the fact that government can only create the enabling environment for establishing business or the working condition for self employment.

It can only create equal opportunities for everyone to launch a venture or start a pursuit. Government will remain a facilitator for jobs and certainly not a direct provider of jobs.

However, are we ready to do something for fulfilling the aspiration of our youngsters? Producing Masters or Graduates in Science, Arts, Commerce etc will no longer serve our purpose in terms of employment and economic empowerment.

Let us start doing something which is truly futuristic. It is not exactly out of the box thinking; it is perhaps within the box. What about setting up a Smart-phone, Computer & AI University.

Let us try to get the best brains of the world for this University. No! No! They will not come here; they will give lectures from their own locations/stations. But we have to pay them a huge salary for being our teaching faculty. Beg, Borrow or Steal and start this Institute. This is going to be a Midas' touch for us.

We are really concerned about the quality of education of our future generation. They are going to carry the responsibility of our future. We really want to hand over our future to those who are well educated, knowledgeable, intelligent youngsters who can successfully carry forward our history and civilization to the next level.

Quite often we are carried away by sentimental and emotive issues and we tend to ignore the most crucial aspect of our society that is the education of our children. Most of us take education so casually that children are going to schools and colleges and they will do something or the other in the days to come. What a conservative mind and what an innocuous idea!

The most important thing we need to note is that we have more than 7 lac educated unemployed in the State. The real issue is whether the present education ensures employment. Certainly not. From this education, one can get clerks (including big clerks), teachers ( including big teachers) and few more jobs here and there.

Though general education is to be delinked from jobs but the skills. So let us ensure skill development in our education. My uncle was only a class VI (passed) from "Your High School". He had some English speaking skill. Because of that he got a job during the Second World War.

You may criticize me for promoting English language. But one thing is sure that the one who can communicate with the maximum number of people in the world will become more successful whether it is business, diplomacy, trade, culture, tourism or even in inter-personal relationship.

In the last few years Chinese have stated learning English in a massive way; the reason being that they want to be a major player in the world affairs. In many aspects India has the language advantage over China because of English.

Northeast people comprehend English far better than many in the country. We should not waste this talent. Let us try to hone our English speaking skill for better communication with the world. This INTERNET world will continue to have language bias till it is completely taken over by AI (Artificial Intelligence).

We don't need to ponder much on the purpose of Education. It is a universally accepted truth that education is for acquiring knowledge. However we have to see whether our own education is actually empowering our children to get into any kind of competition in the world.

It is more about making our children capable and competent to survive comfortably in the global rat race for money, power, employment, business, excellence & enjoyment. But remember education will no longer guarantee a job, it may just help you to find one.

* Free Thinker wrote this article for The Sangai Expresss
This article was webcasted on January 25, 2018.

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